Ok, we're all doing it everyday...looking at and readjusting our personal and company budgets to meet tough economic times. As I said in yesterday's blog, I spent one of my days last week listening to department head presentations for the Town of Kernersville. Our town manager, Curtis Swisher did a great job of prepping each department for tough times, not that they aren't painfully aware already. Most of our departments were making cuts to their budget and trying to save the town money long before it was en vogue.
Ok, back on track...the meeting...every request for the most part was lean and mean but that doesn't mean that each department will get everything or anything that they want. With tax values increasing, folks on a shoestring as it is and no cuts in existing services projected, that leaves raising taxes in order to provide for these items, programs and positions, unless they are subsidized by a grant as some of the Police department's requests are.
So the opposite of raising taxes is cutting taxes, something that I have been a proponent of for years. A couple of ways to do this would be to cut back on the intensity of some of our services such as brush, white good and bulk trash pick up...we run three or more trucks by some residences in one day to provide these services. This service could be curtailed to once per quarter or once in the Spring and in the Fall like our neighbors in Winston do. We could still provide year-round drop off for those items needing immediate attention.
Something else suggested by another board member is to look at privatizing the way we handle payroll. There was a request for a new staff person in Finance to alleviate some of the obvious burden on the staff in this department. Even though outside payroll servcing was looked at several years ago, it may be, as one alderman put it, a great time to re-visit the idea, given the economy and the growth of the town staff. An additional suggestion was to go to a monthly pay period for some, not all, departments.
We could also look at privatizing some of programming with Parks and Recreation if the program is not "break-even" or profitable...I will say that I was impressed that the current director, Ernie Page, understands that a mega-recreation center is not something that Kernersville can sustain and he seems to be working very hard to make sure that any future facility built would be utilized appropriately without unnecessary burden to the taxpayers.
I am sure that there are various other ways to cut back, re-configure our services and the way they are delivered so as to not have to raise taxes and to hopefully start our town on a plan to cut taxes as the commercial and industrial base continues to grow. These discussions are just the beginning of a long process leading up to the approved budget in June...So if you have any ideas that you would like to share regarding this issue, I invite you to comment or to send me an email at bcashion@toknc.com
Have a wonderful rainy Monday!
Brooke
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